Tradition Field and Another Sarasota Loss

It's Tuesday evening and I'm sequestered in the Hilton Garden Inn in Port St. Lucie Florida. Just arrived here a bit ago from watching the latest in a seemingly endless streak of Sarasota Reds losses with me in the stands. Tonight it was the St Lucie Mets who kicked the collective ass of the Sarasota Reds humbling them 5-2. The Reds are now 5 and 25 with me in the stands and worse yet 5 games back from first place in their division. Adding insult to injury tonight is the fact that St Lucie has the worst record of ANY team in the Florida State League. If you have the stomach for it you can view the box score here.

Tradition Field is the spring training home of the hapless New York Mets. As lousy as the Sarasota Reds are, I think they should switch allegiance and become the Sarasota Mets....they deserve each other.

Despite who trains here in spring, and who got their asses beat here tonight, this is one very very nice stadium. The seats are very room, each has a glass holder in front of it. The overall feeling is of an amphitheater with seating for thousands. I'm not sure how many people can fit in the stadium, but tonight more than 1,900 people were in the stands. It was a rush to be around that many minor league fans. I was able to acquire a Mets baseball cap, taking me closer to my goal of getting a hat for each Florida State League team.

The dimensions of Tradition Field are similar to other stadiums; 338 feet down each line and 410 feet to dead center. Palm trees line the outfield and there is a berm area where more can be seated. In right center field along the wall there is a very prominent Landshark Lager advertising sign and along the third base line is "Island Girl Tiki Bar" that has Landshark in bottles. More importantly there are 8 tables next to the Tiki Bar and each has a sun umbrella with Landshark plastered on it. According to the 20 something blonde behind the bar they have 10 kinds of beer on sale in the Tiki Bar. Its certainly not Clearwater or Port Charlotte but its a close approximation.

The only real highlight from tonight's game was the rather bodacious redhead festooned in only a tank top sitting in front of me with her two 10-12 year old sons. She obviously knew little about baseball and tried explaining things to her sons. Seeing the opportunity to be a good samaritan I frequently reached over the seat to explain what was going on in the field. Her lack of a bra under the tank top had absolutely nothing to do with my willingness to explain baseball to her sons.

Tomorrow night I will be in Palm Beach/Jupiter for a game between the Palm Beach Cardinals and the Jupiter Hammerheads. This is "home" for both teams so I'll be able to get the stadium and baseball caps for both teams at once. Once acquired I'll have only the Brevard County stadium and Jackie Robinson stadium in Daytona left for the Florida State League teams and their accompanying baseball caps. I only wonder if the redhead will be at the game in Palm Beach tomorrow night? At least I know the Sarasota Reds will not be.